Probably the most often misunderstood element of KDE4 is Plasma, the extensive widget engine that replaces the normal desktop and the Kicker panel from KDE 3.x. The entire KDE4 desktop is built up out of Plasmoids (yet another term for desk accessory), including the panel and the desktop itself - and it is the latter that has been causing quite some confusion. Where are my desktop icons? Update: Aaron Seigo has published a screencast showing how the FolderView Plasmoid behaves as a normal desktop, and how to make it so.

Oh, it is is it? Then please enlighten me on how to make the Win95 (or vista for that matter) desktop to simultaneuosly show files from a smb-share, the users desktop, a ssh-server, and a ftp-server to use a somewhat extreme example (and without the user necessarily having to know where the file(s) is/are located). And how to filter it so you only see the relevant files (such as .zip files for example).

The only way I know of how to do the first is to create shortcuts to whereever the "My Documents/Desktop" happens to be located (which, of course, is possible in KDE as well even if it's called symbolic links in unix/linux terminology) which is a clumsy workaround at best. And the latter is not possible at all without third-party applications AFAIK. The BIG difference here is that is that the folderview is far more flexible than any "fixed directory for desktop icons" could ever hope to be.

Besides, even if it is a copy Microsoft copied it as well. I remember having "icons on the desktop with a context menu" feature in MacOS and AmigaOS before Win95 was ever released.